Adjunct questions in prose: a question position-by-reading ability interaction

Area of Science:

• Educational Psychology
• Deaf Studies
• Cognitive Science

Background:

• Effective learning strategies are crucial for postsecondary students, especially those with hearing impairments.
• Understanding how adjunct questions impact factual learning in deaf learners is essential for developing targeted educational interventions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare the immediate factual learning performance of profoundly deaf postsecondary students.
• To investigate the effect of adjunct question placement (pre-, post-, or no questions) on learning outcomes.
• To explore the interaction between question position and students' reading ability.

Main Methods:

• Profoundly deaf postsecondary students were divided into groups based on reading ability.
• Participants studied a prose passage with either pre-questions, post-questions, or no questions.
• Immediate factual learning was assessed after the reading task.

Main Results:

• A significant interaction was found between question position and reading ability.
• Low-ability readers demonstrated the highest learning performance with pre-questions.
• High-ability readers showed significantly greater learning performance with post-questions.

Conclusions:

• The optimal placement of adjunct questions for factual learning depends on the student's reading ability.
• Pre-questions may support lower-ability readers by setting a focus, while post-questions can aid higher-ability readers in consolidating information.
• These findings have implications for designing effective reading comprehension strategies for deaf learners.